Utopia recap: Is the new Working Dog comedy a place you'd really want to be?

The mere fact that this is a Working Dog production means that you can guess the tone – this is the D-Gen production team, the folks behind Frontline and The Hollowmen. So all your immediate assumptions are correct: it's an ensemble cast, it's about a deeply bureaucratic organisation, and it's damn funny.

The show is set in the offices of the chillingly plausible Nation Building Authority, a private-public initiative putting together the Woolarong Urban Development.

It's created and written by the long-time team of Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner, but it's clearly Sitch's baby: he directs and plays the central role of harried departmental head Tony, balancing the pressures of governmental interference while attempting to woo overseas investment consortia.

He's assisted by the less than able Scott (Dave Lawson) and the downright incompetent Katie (Emma-Louise Wilson), who are predictably unable to help him when an artsy new logo is demanded by the blustery Rhonda (Kitty Flanagan, in scene-stealing form).

At the same time an errant line in the prospectus forces hapless staffers Nat and Hugh (Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola) into finding some way to fulfil the new Jamie Oliver-approved request that the development include a community garden, as demanded by teflon-coated government liaison Jim (Anthony Lehmann, aka Lehmo) and despite the utter refusal of the developers to even consider including it.

The timing of the series is perfect, given the current controversies about government involvement with the construction industry (as the Independent Commission Against Corruption have learned…), and the performances are note perfect – the commitment with which Lehmann warns “the tweet tide will turn” should win the man a Logie, and Pacquola and McGregor make a great comic team. Can't wait for next week.